


Palliative

by Prix



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Character Development, Child Warden, Coming of Age, Family, Gen, Giving Birth, Growing Up, Poison, Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Skill: Poison Making, Teen Warden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25914445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: A little drop of poison can bring peace, and other lessons learned while growing up in the Cousland household.
Relationships: Female Cousland & Cousland Family, Female Warden & Cousland Family, Fergus Cousland/Oriana Cousland
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020





	Palliative

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first _Dragon Age_ fanfic, and I am new to the fandom! 
> 
> I am hoping to write fic about my player-character sort-of OCs and canon characters alike. I have fallen in love with this world quite quickly, and I have also found that a lot of the fandom seems nice. 
> 
> I am not that confident about OC-building, but the environment that video game player-characters give you (under ideal circumstances), in terms of giving one canon characters and a world and _some_ context clues for character generation makes me intrigued. I hope that I am filling in the blanks in a way that will be engaging for anyone else who chooses to read. 
> 
> I basically wanted to write a fic to explain **why** my Human Noble Origin Rogue, Rosamunde Cousland, would have "Poison Making" as a skill. 
> 
> Here is a post about her on my dreamwidth: [Dreamwidth](https://prixmium.dreamwidth.org/33422.html)
> 
> And my character page on my new _Dragon Age_ tumblr: [Characters](https://couslandofhighever.tumblr.com/characters)
> 
> This fulfills the [**"vulnerable"**](https://prixmium.dreamwidth.org/32039.html) prompt on my [fffc](https://fffc.dreamwidth.org/) 100 Prompt Table.

Rosamunde Cousland is ten years old when her brother marries the daughter of a wealthy Antivan trader. The young woman has come to live there with them in Highever, and she will not be going home with her family when the wedding festivities are through.

“Won’t you miss your family?” Rosamunde asks her urgently, palms pressed hard against the dining table across from Oriana. She wants to ask the question before it is too late. Hours from now, her family will go to bed for the night, and in the morning, many of them will scatter to Denerim or back to Antiva. They will leave her behind, and then she will have no chance to change her mind.

“I will miss them, certainly, but I will see them... from time to time,” Oriana replies. Rosamunde watches as Oriana looks around the hall, eyes falling on her father and her siblings and other people who are strangers to the Couslands but not to her.

“Will Fergus go away with you when you see them? Or will they come back to Highever?” Rosamunde asks, trying to pronounce the name of her home with the crisp pride she hears in her parents’ voices when they speak it.

Bryce clears his throat and chuckles. He gestures with an open hand, trying to persuade Rosamunde to come to his side instead. She feels her own pale cheeks flush hot as Oriana’s do the same. Oriana’s are round and full, like apples.

“Pup, why don’t you let your new sister enjoy everyone’s company? You will have plenty of time to get to know her later,” he says, trying to lighten his daughter’s serious frame. Perhaps he is aware, while his child isn’t, that some of the assembled guests are staring at Rosamunde. Her tongue is sharp for her age, and her father’s reprimand is light.

Rosamunde lowers her gaze to the smooth stone floor. Her hands bunch lightly into the fabric of the gown that is almost formless on her slight frame. She twists her skirts a little. The top layer is blue, not like the colour of her family’s flag, but more like an overcast sky.

“New sister?” she asks. This time she looks to Fergus for an explanation.

He sits beside his new wife, his fingers twitching against the tabletop where they rest, unsure what to do.

“Well—“he tries, but Oriana speaks over him just before his feeble effort to explain the world to his sister was about to shatter before polite company.

“I’m sure I could be, in time. You don’t have a sister, do you?” Oriana asks.

Rosamunde thinks it over, and she feels soothed, at least for the moment. Perhaps Oriana’s family is abandoning her to be all alone, after all.

That night, when the castle has grown very quiet, letting the wind howl from time to time around its sharp corners of stone, Rosamunde still lies awake. She twists her fingers in her blanket and pulls it tighter toward her already sturdy jaw. She tries not to grind her teeth.

Even though she thinks her family and her home are the best there could be, she still cannot rest easy with the thought that Oriana’s whole family came to Highever but only one of them is staying behind. She thinks that if she is ever to marry, she will not go to live alone among strangers, no matter what.

⤲⤲⤲

Oriana cries sometimes after her family is far out of sight and reach.

Rosamunde watches her brother not know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He reaches to hold hers, but he hesitates, because even though she is his wife, they only met about a month ago.

Oriana notices and reaches out for one of Fergus’s hands before he can withdraw it. She draws a deep breath and exhales it shakily. After a moment, her breathing and posture steady themselves. She squeezes both his hands as she straightens her back where she sits.

Fergus kneels down onto his knees before her, settling in to let her hold his hands.

“Thank you,” Oriana says softly, her voice as steady as she can manage after stifling sobs.

“I wish I had not... taken you away,” Fergus says. Oriana is already shaking her head gently before he finishes speaking.

“I was sent away, more than taken. There is a difference,” she retorts. She smiles gently, and her voice sounds a little more clear with the second thought. “And I don’t blame my father for it.”

Rosamunde frowns deeply at what she hears. She looks back down the passageway toward the main hall and the courtyard where her father is sure to be. She cannot imagine him ever _sending her away_ , to marry or to do anything.

When she joins her brother’s training, as much as her mother and father will allow her _at this age_ , she hears talk of when her brother may one day lead troops into battle. She knows that if this ever happens, he will come home again. He has to.

“Rosy,” Fergus scolds her, jerking her out of her fretting with a more imminent concern. Her small heart gallops to life in her chest, but she is grinning a smile of mischief accomplished even as she turns to let her body weight propel her far out of his reach before he can make it to the doorway. “You know it’s rude to listen to people’s private conversations,” he complains as he makes a half-hearted attempt to chase her down, but she is already gone.

Rosamunde’s bare feet slip on the stone floor, and she trips forward, but she catches herself on her hands, easily distributing her weight before she hurts her knees. Her whole body jars with the shock of it, but the thrill of escape surges through her fast enough that she does not notice redness on her palms or pain in her young joints.

She does not know where she is going, but she knows the castle top to bottom. She does not even turn around to see how far Fergus pursued her. All that she is thinking about is moving forward, until suddenly a warm, firm hand catches her at the center of her chest and lowers to the first soft part of her belly. She finds herself lifted slightly off the floor and pulled around until her mother sets her on her feet before her.

“Rosamunde!” she scolds softly. “What are you doing, little one?”

“Running,” Rosamunde says, her breath coming quick and deep.

“I can see that,” Eleanor replies, sensing her daughter’s humour and only barely smiling. “From whom? Or what.”

“Fergus.”

Eleanor looks down the way Rosamunde had come all but flying. She listens. There is no sign of her son.

She looks down at her daughter skeptically. She straightens her posture, one hand on her hip.

“I believe you have lost him,” she says, in the manner of playing along a little. “But you need to take care. Where are your boots?”

Rosamunde looks down at her bare feet. The bottoms are faintly covered in a gray dusting.

“Not wearing any,” she says, observational.

“I can see that,” Eleanor repeats, more skeptically. “I must insist that you go put them on at once.”

“Why? I’m not too cold or too hot,” Rosamunde argues, meeting her mother’s gaze.

“You will cut your feet or break your ankle,” Eleanor explains pointedly.

“But I’m inside,” Rosamunde persists.

“Even so, you should strive to always be ready for what may come next,” Eleanor says, her gaze a bit distant, thinking of time before Rosamunde had ever been born.

Rosamunde frowns at the look on her mother’s face. It’s a little frightening to the ten year old girl, to see such time in someone’s eyes. Time she cannot yet understand.

Eleanor catches the puzzling look in her daughter’s eyes and reaches out to brush her thumb against her cheek and her wide jawbone, tough as any mule but only a little overgrown for her tender face. She sighs softly.

“If you want to learn how to fight, how to defend, as soldiers and thieves and even _pirates_ do, you must beware of those who have already put such training to action,” she says, tapping Rosamunde’s temple lightly.

Rosamunde’s frown deepens, but all at once it softens as she realizes she is being elevated to a rank better than _pretending_.

“Now, go put on your boots,” Eleanor says, turning her daughter around and sending her in the direction of her room.

⤲⤲⤲

“Father,” Rosamunde prompts Bryce one day, “how long did you know Mother before you got married?”

Bryce looks up from where he is poring over books and documents Rosamunde is yet too young to understand. He smiles, a bit bemused.

“Quite some time,” he says. “They even—“

“Wrote a song about you, I know,” Rosamunde finishes for her father. She grins, a little bit wicked, and sings lightly with a little sway of her head from side to side, “ _Drop him, Lady, drop him!_ ”

Bryce chuckles freely, crinkling the lines around his eyes.

“My, what a spitfire you are already,” he says, but he is plainly pleased.

Rosamunde rights herself, pushing herself more upright in the chair, though it means her feet dangle.

“How long?” she asks again.

“It was a matter of years. We met during a time of war,” Bryce explains, trying to guess at his daughter’s interest and satisfy it in one go.

Rosamunde kicks her feet a little. This time they are covered in boots.

“So Mother wanted to marry you?” she asks, seemingly lost in thought about her toes.

Bryce raises his eyebrows. Even when she is not trying, his daughter can cut to the meat of a matter. He wonders if she knows it yet and about what it will mean for her future.

“By the time I asked her, I dare say… yes,” he explains, fondly.

“Did Oriana want to marry Fergus?” Rosamunde says, barely with any time to process the prior answer.

“I… am afraid that is a more complicated question than I can presume to answer for her. She was willing, yes. As far as what she wanted? I… dare not guess.”

Rosamunde’s gaze lifts to her father’s. She looks irritated and grim.

“Does _Fergus_ know if she wants to be married to him?”

“I should hope so,” Bryce replies, treading lightly. He does not want to overburden his daughter with worries beyond her years, but she already seems to have borrowed some for herself. He supposes that the fact that she is forward-thinking is a good thing.

“She only knew him for a month!” Rosamunde says, just loudly enough that Bryce wishes she had kept her voice down.

“Yes, pup,” he says with a heavy sigh.

“That’s too short,” she announces.

“It may be, for some,” Bryce says. He watches Rosamunde’s face. She is not satisfied. “… But Oriana’s family was eager to find her security. They have several children, and this was a good match for her. I would not have forced Fergus, and I do not believe he would have pressed for her hand had she not wanted to give it.”

“Oriana’s father sent her away,” Rosamunde says.

Bryce wonders how much of his explanation she understands, but her answer makes him think he might have gotten to the crux of her concern. He folds his hands together and rests his chin upon them, weight on his elbows. He watches her for a long moment, adoring his little girl, petite but getting taller, growing like a weed. Her hair is so long she almost sits upon it, like a dark, wavy, unkempt cape. Her eyes are a bright sort of brown, alive and vivid around her dark pupils. She watches him like a carrion bird, circling, suspicious.

“That will never happen to you, pup,” he says softly. He does not wish for Oriana to overhear. He does not wish to hurt anyone’s heart, only to lighten his daughter’s.

Rosamunde finally blinks.

“I won’t ever get married?” she asks.

“Not unless you want to,” he replies. He gently unfolds his hands, reluctantly feeling around as if he means to get back to work.

“But you won’t send me away to someone to see if I want to marry them?” she asks.

“You… should marry wisely, if you choose to marry, Rosamunde,” he says, using her name with a touch of seriousness. “You bear certain responsibilities as a Cousland. You were born with them. There are certain… choices that would be wiser for you to make carefully. And I will do my best to advise you as long as I am alive. But… no one is absolutely free, pup. That doesn’t mean you cannot be happy.”

Rosamunde’s shoulders slump a little even as her facial features soften. He thinks he has given her much to think about.

“Those are things for when you are older, pup. Go. Play or help someone you see.”

She obeys without question, for once.

⤲⤲⤲

Rosamunde finds that she does like having Oriana around, even if she does not quite think of her as another sister. She has not been there all her life, the way Fergus has. But sometimes, Oriana takes a turn at brushing her hair, or they go outside the castle walls and look at flowers growing up between rocks and in cultivated gardens alike.

Then one day, Oriana does not come down for breakfast.

“Where’s Oriana?” Rosamunde presses her brother, first thing.

He takes a long few gulps of water.

“She’s not feeling well,” he explains.

She does not feel well for several days after that. Rosamunde hardly sees her at all.

After she tires of waiting, she creeps across to their bedroom while her brother is out training. She has lost interest in following him and pleading to be taught more about what she must know to use knives and bows and everything else, at least for the day. She has not yet gone to Aldous for her lessons, either, even though she knows he will be cross that she has found yet another reason to put him off. She knocks steadily on the door, five times.

“Yes?” she hears a hoarse voice answer her.

Rosamunde opens the door and peeks inside. Her movements are steady, but she is reluctant. She thinks Oriana’s voice sounds sickly and raw. She hears her clear her throat.

“Oh, little Rosy. Or… Rosamunde. I know… your brother calls you ‘Rosy,’ sometimes,” Oriana says, apologetically. Her voice comes a little stronger with use, but she is leaned back against a pillow to one side of the bed. She gently rubs at her forehead, shielding her eyes from the light that comes in through the window. A small fire burns almost down to embers in the fireplace.

“Come in,” Oriana prompts Rosamunde when she lingers at the door.

Rosamunde does so, on her bare tiptoes. She has not put on her boots for the day. Her nose crinkles at a sharp scent that she just barely catches. She isn’t sure what she smells, but she looks around in case it is dangerous.

Oriana watches her approach her bedside for a moment before she speaks up.

“I apologize if it is not so pleasant in here as you remember,” she says, trying for lighthearted. “I have been a little unwell, but Mother Mallol says I will feel better in a week or two. She has sent for a healer.”

Rosamunde frowns more deeply than before as she comes up, taking a handful of the bedclothes as she stands at Oriana’s side. It sounds like a long time to be ill without more urgency to send for someone, but she is young and time seems to stretch on forever.

“Are you going to die?” she says fretfully.

Oriana laughs, and she gives into it, because Rosamunde looks so serious.

“No!” Oriana says. “At least, I certainly hope not.”

Rosamunde watches her, as if she half expects the performance to be only that. She hates it when the other people in the castle try to protect her simply because she is only ten.

Oriana studies her and finally pushes up onto her elbows. From there, she sits up more completely against the headboard.

“Sit down?” she suggests, nodding to the foot of the bed.

Rosamunde takes the invitation, as she has several times before. The movement distracts the frown off her face.

“I’m sure Fergus might have liked to have told you, or have been here at least, but… well, you’re here now,” Oriana says.

Rosamunde watches with sudden, anxious attention.

“Your brother and I are going to have a baby,” Oriana supplies.

Rosamunde knows enough to glance at Oriana’s belly. She does not know everything, yet.

“You don’t look like you’re going to have a baby,” she decides after a moment.

“Well, that will come with time,” Oriana says, laughing again until it trails off into a soft groan as she politely brings her hand to her mouth.

“Is having a baby making you sick?” Rosamunde asks.

“It does, sometimes. But only at the beginning. It’s… when the child inside is new,” she explains, careful not to confuse or overstep.

“Well, Father should send for a healer faster,” Rosamunde says, frowning.

“Your family is being very kind to me, really,” Oriana says. When Rosamunde does not look at all assuaged, she leans forward a bit. “You _could_ go ask Nan for some tea for me,” she suggests.

Rosamunde nods and gets to her feet without another word, eager to complete her task. She runs off. Oriana remembers the frequent conversations she has overheard between mother and daughter.

“Don’t forget your boots!” she calls. Too late.

⤲⤲⤲

Rosamunde is eleven by the time Oriana is confined to her room once again. This time rather than being sick to her stomach, she cries out in pain sometimes. It echoes all across the upper floor of the castle. Rosamunde sits in the corner between her parents’ door and her own bedroom, hugging her knees.

Her own stomach is twisted in knots. She does not understand why Oriana’s pain is not better when the woman in Circle robes is in the room with her. She is a healer, and Rosamunde thought a healer would make her better.

“ _All we can do is wait. The baby will come soon,”_ her mother had told her before she had disappeared into the bedroom as well.

Fergus comes in and out of the room. When he does, he looks white as a sheet, but each time he steels himself and goes back inside.

Rosamunde’s backside and knuckles are getting numb, from sitting and gripping, by the time she senses a presence beside her. She looks up sharply, wondering how someone could have gotten so close without her noticing.

She sighs, somewhat annoyed and somewhat relieved when it is only Aldous.

“There you are, youngest,” he says. “Though, you won’t be the youngest for long,” he says.

He is speaking in that tone she knows is meant to distract her. She glares at him a little, but she is already uncurling herself to climb to her feet.

“Your father sent me for you,” he adds.

Rosamunde is standing on her feet, but she shakes her head, staring across the hall at the cracked-open door of her brother’s room.

“I… I want to see,” she says. She takes a few steps to go and do just that, but she feels Aldous reach out and catch her by the shoulder, rather firmly.

“Not yet,” he says, and she can barely hear his soft words over Oriana’s laboured cry.

Rosamunde feels fear and sympathy curl in her stomach.

All she can do is wait, she remembers. And she hates it.

Rosamunde does not sleep in the library.

She cannot read, either.

Aldous eventually tells her a story of Ferelden’s past, and her family’s name comes up in it more than once. She listens to him, and parts of the story sink in, but more than anything, his voice is a familiar, mostly comforting drone. Her eyes get heavy, tired, and a bit red around the edges.

She cannot stop thinking about how much pain Oriana had been in.

Why had no one told her about that? Why did it hurt?

She tries to listen to Aldous who, to his credit, does not seem to tire of trying his hardest to entertain and educate her.

It is hard to know what time of day it is with no windows in the library, but eventually the door opens. Rosamunde peers blearily at the person who appears in the frame.

“Rosamunde, would you like to come meet your nephew?” Bryce asks her. He is smiling a little. Rosamunde exhales, getting up and running after her father. She does not know what she had expected, dreaded, or at least she cannot quite put it into words, but the fear uncoils completely and all at once.

Aldous follows and catches her, making her walk with him and at his pace up the stairs.

It seems to take an age, but eventually Rosamunde pushes her way through the cluster of people – Nan, Mother Mallol, one of Oriana’s cousins, her mother, and finally, Fergus – to stand in sight of the bed.

Fergus’s hands go out to grab her by both shoulders. She looks up at him, more concerned than annoyed.

“Oh, there she is,” Oriana says. She is drenched in sweat, her strawberry hair dark and stuck to her forehead. She is covered up to her belly with a single blanket, in spite of how hot she seems. There are towels and a basin of water on the bed beside her. Some of the unfolded towels appear to be pink or bloody.

Rosamunde frowns, wondering how this is bloody, like the training grounds sometimes are.

“Come see?” Oriana suggests, trying to draw Rosamunde’s darting eyes.

Rosamunde looks up at Fergus, for permission.

“His name is Oren,” Fergus replies, and she thinks he sounds proud. He guides her over to the side of the bed, proving her suspicions.

Rosamunde tilts her head until she sees the baby’s face. He seems to be asleep.

“Will his eyes open?” she asks, thinking of mabari puppies.

Oriana smiles, but she groans before she can even laugh.

“They already have,” she assures her.

“'Oren,’” Rosamunde tries out. She reaches out for the blanket, but Fergus discourages her with a little squeeze. She understands without asking, and she doesn’t disobey. “Like Oriana!” she cries when she realizes, a little too loudly.

The baby stirs and complains softly.

Oriana shushes him, and Rosamunde recognizes dread come across her features. She looks completely exhausted.

“I’ll take him for now,” Fergus volunteers. He distributes Rosamunde to the side, down toward the foot of the bed, not pushing her away but reaching for his child.

Rosamunde takes the hint and wanders back to find somewhere _out of the way_ as her brother takes the swaddled infant into his arms. She can’t help feeling a sad kind of smile come across her face. She feels confused, excited and disappointed all at once.

The moment Oren is safe in his father’s arms, Oriana looks after them for a moment but then leans back to lie down against the bed. She seems to sink further into it the moment she is reclined.

Fergus looks up from his son’s face, then he turns to the people gathered in the room.

“My wife needs rest,” he says in a voice that is not to be questioned. No one even thinks of it, and the adults begin to file out of the room.

Rosamunde clings to the door frame, lingering for a moment more, watching her brother standing there holding his son. She notices that one adult does not move to leave. The woman from the Circle, clad in colours of the sun, moves out of the shadows from the far side of the room. A little bottle is in the palm of her hand. The woman’s long hair is tied back but moves with her as she helps Oriana sit up just enough. She speaks softly and Oriana opens her mouth and proceeds to lift her tongue a bit.

Rosamunde feels someone tug at her to follow the others downstairs.

It is Aldous.

She resists him to see what the woman is doing to Oriana.

“What is that?” she asks. She wonders if her brother will answer her. She remembers that the woman is a mage. “… Is it magic?”

She wonders if the woman _can_ answer her. If she is _allowed_ to answer her. But then the woman has let Oriana settle back, and Oriana seems even more heavy against her pillow. The cap is replaced on the small bottle, and the healer goes to return it to her supplies.

“Not magic,” she replies. “Poison, but only a little drop.”

Rosamunde’s heart is filled with fear and a spark of anger, but Aldous grasps her arm and pulls her away before she can express it.

“Ah, the woman means no harm. It would be suicide to threaten your brother’s wife in any way,” Aldous volunteers as he tugs Rosamunde along until they reach the top of the stairs. He only loosens his grip that neither of them may trip on the way back down.

“But she said ‘poison,’” Rosamunde argues, but with a long glance over her shoulder she surrenders and begins to walk down the stairs. Fergus would never let anything like that happen, she resolves. Maybe it was just a joke. A bad joke.

“And she is right. Many medicines are poisons in the wrong hands or the wrong dose. And some poisons are medicines if in the right one,” Aldous says. “Almost all our poisons and our cures come from the plants and animals in our world.”

This explanation is one of the most intriguing things Aldous has ever said to her. She looks over at him, curiously.

“Aldous, are you a mage?” she asks. She isn’t sure why she asks it, but it seems to be the right thing to ask.

“A mage?” Aldous asks. “No, young lady. I am an old man who has read too many books and seen more than I can tell you.”

Rosamunde accepts the answer and reaches the foot of the stairs. She looks back up as she hears conversation from beyond the stairs. She hears Fergus coming along with the baby and sees him darken the top of the stairs.

Oriana is alone, or with her healer. Rosamunde had never known that having a baby needed so many people, or that it was such a lonely thing.

⤲⤲⤲

Rosamunde is sixteen years old when the Howes come to stay for two weeks one winter. They are staying, at least, until First Day, and Rosamunde has never been more interested in Aldous’s lessons. She comes to the library, dressed for the day in fine things that seem a little suspiciously fine for her.

Her mother says she is coming of age and that she should have at least a few things she would prefer not to get dirty.

Rosamunde likes some of the new gowns and furs her mother has procured her her, but she cannot help the prickling suspicion in her stomach and along her spine that it has something to do with the fact that Rendon Howe has two sons. He has a daughter, too, but the thought of her doesn’t make her uneasy.

Women do not seek after children from other women for political gain.

Watching Oren grow to the age of five has softened her memories of the agony she had heard Oriana go through, even from afar. She watches him play and watches the way her brother absolutely refuses to let him take such an interest in martial activities as she had even as a little girl. He is sweet and curious, and Rosamunde likes to read to him and put him to bed when Oriana and Fergus are away or wish for some time alone.

The thought of one day being a mother is not what is odious to her.

Instead, it is one look or one syllable from Rendon Howe that makes her most assured that it does not matter who his children are, how well-bred or kind or interesting. She knows that she would rather run away to the Korcari Wilds than have Howe be the future grandfather of even one child of hers.

She has reclined on a particularly comfortable chair in the library with a stack of three books. One is the book Aldous has assigned her to read. The next is a soft, velvety-bound book with words in it she is not meant to read in polite company but which occupies the shelves of her family’s library. The last is the one whose spine she has cracked open and has her nose hidden inside. There are ornate drawings of plants from all across Ferelden, describing their uses and dangers.

It is comforting. There are bottles in her room and a couple in a satchel at her side. She has learned much since she heard the healer speak so lightly of poison, those years ago. Some plants, when distilled, could eat through metal with time. Others burned the flesh. And still others were sweet and would send any man or woman to a quick and early death.

“Lady Rosamunde, you cannot hide in here until First Day dawns,” Aldous remarks as he dawdles across the library. He does not have any particular insistence behind his admonition.

“And why can’t I?” she asks. She straightens and closes her book, pushing her fingernail between the pages so as to try and keep her place. She tries a different tact when Aldous just gives her a mildly amused but wilting stare. “Can’t I take an interest in my education when it is too cold to practice bladework with a man made of straw outside?”

“Do not be coy with me, young lady. I know your interest in your education is as untraceable as the wind,” he says.

“I love your stories,” Rosamunde counters, feigning hurt.

“Only when it suits you.”

“Well,” she says, not offering real argument. She puts her boots to the floor and sighs. She stares at the door, not wishing to get up and go mingle properly with their guests. She knows what she should do, but she has not yet mustered the will to do it.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid?” Aldous asks her.

“Only of saying the wrong thing and causing another war,” Rosamunde says lightly, chuckling at her own stupid joke.

“You are very good at speaking your mind, but I know you _can_ be equally adept at telling people what they need to hear. It isn’t even always untrue,” Aldous suggests. She hears it as genuine advice and looks down, mulling it over.

Rosamunde admires her father’s diplomacy, but his faith in some people makes her uneasy. The people in the teyrnir admire her parents and brother for both justice and mercy. She wants to carry on that legacy, wherever she goes, but she cannot imagine how her father sees a friend in Howe. He sneers at everything, and she knows that the history between their families has not always been an easy one.

“Are you suggesting I should… play along?” she asks.

“I have seen you do it. You have a head for politics,” Aldous replies, his tongue clicking softly as if he had more to say but thought better of it.

Rosamunde sighs and stands up, shaking her gown down over her boots.

“I will do whatever is necessary for my family, but I will not promise I won’t slip some sleeping medicine into Thomas’s drink if he keeps needling me,” she announces, her voice projecting through the library but not further. She would not actually do that to a _child_ , or anyone, if she did not truly feel the need.

She sighs, squares and softens her shoulders, and brings her stack of three books over to Aldous.

“Keep these for me, will you?” she asks, smiling at him gratefully.

Aldous straightens the stack of books and eyes the spine of the one in the center.

She gives him a look that tells him not to say a word about it. He obliges with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

Rosamunde heads toward the door, feeling the small satchel hanging at her hip with the two little bottles inside. Rendon Howe makes her uneasy, but she is glad that she has learned that too much of something can be poison, but just a drop can be medicine. He makes her skin tight, like coming upon a nest of poisonous spiders or snakes, but if being kind to him – just enough – might alleviate the problem, then she can play along.

**Author's Note:**

> I welcome comments!


End file.
